


Avalon

by masterofesoterica



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofesoterica/pseuds/masterofesoterica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandor lives on the Quiet Isle.</p>
<p>He'll never see Sansa Stark again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Gravedigger

 

He is kneeling but he is not a pious man. Pain lances through his leg; his knees ache from the cold. Winter is truly here. He is dead and buried, with only the pain to remind him of the world outside of this vivid, white dream. The blood rushes in his ears—the blood of all the bodies that float down the river and the bones that find their way back. The Stranger’s eyes are painted in black, but upon the cheek of that piece of carved driftwood, the artist had daubed a streak of red.

It is quiet here.

 

-

 

Before his mother and sister died, he remembers Gregor crying. In his preternaturally deep voice, Gregor would complain of a clanging in his head—he would scream if the sun were let into his eyes. Sandor knew to stay quiet because mother needed to tend to his brother and sister. And he wanted his brother to get better, so that Gregor might then show him all the things that the Master-at-Arms was already teaching him.

But Gregor’s screams soon faded, to be replaced with black silence.

 

-

 

He is lame now. It is a comfort to him. At night some old dogs slink into his room and curl on his bed. They reek of dirt and the sea and the rot setting in their old bones. They smell like him. He does not give them his food; he knows that they’ll find scraps in the dankest corners if only they wish to live. And though he does not feed them, they nevertheless come back.

He sleeps with his face buried in their thick and matted fur. In the mornings, the tears are dry and he misses the dull ache in his head that had been his long companion these long years. The wine was always dependable. But it too lied. It lied with its sweetness whilst all along it meant to rot his gut and bludgeon his brains.

The Elder Brother had nursed him through those weeks he lay, immobile from the infection in his leg and crazed from the winesickness. The bite of steel still whispered through his veins then. He wanted to see the blood flow out and out and out. And then, the sickness might flow out too.

 

 -

 

At thirteen, she was the Maiden made flesh. On the ramparts that day, even when she had stared into the abyss, there had been no hate in her eyes.

In the North, she is eighteen and the wolves are howling again. They are creatures of winter, and they have come out of their dens at last. He hears whispers of fire and blood from across the seas, but in the North, one word is repeated over and over—mercy, mercy, mercy.

Had she become a mother? Did her lips turn up like the carved Madonna when she looked at her child? Did she still believe she could save the children from war?

-

 

One day in high summer he digs a final grave. He is old now. He has lived two lives and that is one more than most men can boast. He will never be a pious man. Sandor only dreams of the red summer fading to gold. And amidst the autumn grass, he dreams of black dogs leaping unfettered, running to join their wolfish cousins in the woods, none of them awaiting the call of a master.

 

 

 


	2. Sansa Stark

 

The pilgrims arrive late one evening. The Elder Brother greets them kindly for they have brought much needed supplies for the growing Septry. The Quiet Isle no longer lives up to its name; it is now a bustling centre for learning and settlement, with a growing library and several marketplaces.

“Elder Brother,” she says.

“Yes, child?” he replies. They do not hold with titles here. She is one amongst many, despite her finery.

“I have heard about your gravedigger,” she says.

“Our gravedigger has not had much to occupy his time as of late, the Seven be thanked.”

“Might I speak to him?”

“The one you seek is gone, my child.”

“Where is he gone? Might I still find him? I wish to … thank him.”

“The Stranger is come for his soul. His body lies in the lichyard. Our new gravedigger could show you the way.”

The woman pauses, her eyes flickering shut for a moment. “So he is dead, after all this time, after all these wars.”

“He is at peace. And he would not mourn the man he once was.”

“And yet— _I_ still do—I cannot help it.”

“I can give you no consolation, my child.”

“I ask for none,” she cries, her voice thick with the timbre of a queen. “He taught me that, your old gravedigger.”

She is wise, he sees. She bears little resemblance to the girl he has conjured up over long, tired conversations. He reaches out to catch her hand—a presumption to be sure—but she grips his callused palms with softness and strength in those long fingers.

“I thank you,” she says, “for being a true brother to him.”

“I did only as each man ought to.”

She smiles and her eyes are blue and deep. There are grey threads through her dark red hair and soft lines in her face. She is no longer the maid of three and ten who once was the prize of a knight’s quest.

They look out over the rolling green expanse of the isle, the windmill turning lazily somewhere above it all, and it is a long time before she speaks again.

“Did he leave anything for me?”

“No, my child. We have given his old robes to the new novices and he had nothing else. But perhaps you’d like to visit the Sept. He spent many hours before the gods there.”

She could hardly imagine him praying. Nonetheless, she finds the empty Sept. She lights a candle at the Stranger. The painted daub of blood on the wooden face catches the evening sun and glistens silver.

Afterwards, she finds the place where he lies. She presses her face into the grass and earth over his bones.

“You are come back to me, Sandor Clegane.”

She was not a caged bird and he was no chained dog. Here, they ranged beneath the sky.


End file.
